


Unimpressive

by Searofyr



Series: Born to uncertain parents, something about dragons, way too early [7]
Category: Elder Scrolls, Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
Genre: Background Relationships, Gen, Siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-02
Updated: 2020-12-02
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:41:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27844672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Searofyr/pseuds/Searofyr
Summary: From the journal of Lothryn Simero, House Telvanni, Nerevarine, Morrowind 3E.Lothryn’s first conversation with Vivec in his new incarnation. Not all things are bound for success.Set during the events of TES III: Morrowind.
Relationships: Divayth Fyr/Male Dunmer Nerevarine, Divayth Fyr/Nerevarine, Nerevarine & Vivec (Elder Scrolls), Sotha Sil/Male Dunmer Vestige, Sotha Sil/Vestige
Series: Born to uncertain parents, something about dragons, way too early [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1997554
Kudos: 11





	Unimpressive

First time I saw him for real. Well. First time in this life, which is the one that counts. And outside of weird reminiscent visions cause calling that vague rubbish ‘memories’ would be ridiculous.

But there he was. A former brother of mine. The ‘Warrior Poet’. And what’s the first thing the ‘Warrior Poet’ had to say? “So it’s you.”

“Yeah.” Obvious enough. We could both be obvious.

“So it _is_ you.” He sounded a bit incredulous at that.

“Found me after all,” I said. “I’ve never been good at subtlety. But it took you long enough to start looking.”

“I’d heard of you,” Vivec said, taking on a waiting pose, had the gall to hover in space. Yeah congratulations, you achieved godhood over my previous self’s corpse. I’m very impressed.

“Too unimpressive?” I asked. Cause why not go with that train of thought?

“I took you for the lover of my brother’s irritating friend.” He mustered me. “And that was it.”

“I mean, you’re not wrong. Though I’d have to disagree about the irritating part. But I can see why you’d think so.”

I don’t know why I wasn’t more afraid at that moment. I was in his temple, on his territory, he was the divine one, he clearly wanted me dead and out of the way and the people to shut up about me, and he’d killed me once before when I’d been someone he’d had more of an attachment to. Allegedly.

Maybe I was just too annoyed, and that drowned out the fear.

He shifted his hovering position. “I asked about you once or twice, in fact. It was in the Second Era. You had just appeared on the scene, and you were around my brother a lot. And you didn’t seem to be one of Salyn’s people in particular, as his eccentric company usually was.”

“I like Salyn. And his brother saved my life and took the opportunity to recruit me into his religion.”

“I did hear that. But somehow you stayed around. So I asked again.”

“So it was twice. Not ‘once or twice’.” I usually try not to be like that. But the condescension and the tension of the situation brought it out.

He tilted his head, opened his palm to the ceiling in a gesture of openness and divine encompassing that we both must have known was fake anyway. “Twice, then. I heard more then. You were in many respects a typical Telvanni wizard with typical Telvanni preoccupations – the search for longevity, as most of your kind. Trite and unoriginal, a house obsession. You were intelligent, as a self-made Telvanni wizard would be expected to be. You had a bit more of a conscience, by a small margin – you used to keep Argonian slaves but stopped after a visit to Black Marsh. And you were just a bit more accommodating than many. Pliant enough to get along with Divayth Fyr. Patient enough to put up with him. I remember asking Sil if that was why you were present in his city so often. He said you had won his friend’s heart and you paid for it with constant demands, on your presence, on everything. And that he would not interfere because it was none of his business.” The corners of his mouth twitched downwards. “Typical.”

“All of it true.” Technically. 

“All of it true,” he repeated with a pensive look. “And so I dismissed you. You seemed unremarkable under the circumstances.”

“That’s what happens,” I said. “You’re not the only one. That’s how you get dismissed. You’re the other one. The less important one, who doesn’t make decisions by himself.”

“How long has my brother known, what do you think?”

There it went, he _had_ caught on.

I could be diplomatic. Constructive.

“ _Our_ brother,” I said instead.

“So I see. So I see. And you insist that it is true. That you are Nerevar.” I thought he stumbled over the name just for a fragment of a moment. Then it was gone.

“Oh, I insisted that it _wasn’t_ true and that it was all superstition.” I had to smile a bit at the recollection. “Didn’t believe my own mind or the dreams or visions; didn’t believe other people, even the really credible ones; then I tried my hardest not to believe it even when it was getting really damned obvious. Had to be told in clear words by someone who would know. Then I let myself believe it.”

He looked a bit shaken, then he had himself under control again. “When did he know?” he repeated. Dark edge in his voice.

Should I tell him? Well, it was all falling down anyway. “When he first saw me in a projection.”

Vivec exhaled. Leaned back on his air. Straightened up. “Do you know,” he began, “for a while I thought it was Salyn.”

“Seems more important, doesn’t he? Well. Arguably he is. I’m just a healer.”

He snorted. An unguarded moment he immediately rectified with balmy gestures and warm notes in his voice. “A healer is a noble…”

“Now don’t say anything about a healer of the people or some such, we don’t need that. Let’s just have a conversation. Cause I can’t help but notice, we’ve been having this rather civil conversation – could you stop hovering, though? So maybe we can bury this old nonsense and…”

A pained smile made its way onto his face. “My old friend Nerevar, is it?”

“Lothryn.”

He mustered me.

“It’s all true,” I added, “but this one’s more important. And I’m attached to my self. It’s Lothryn.”

He nodded, absent-mindedly, and that smile was back. “It doesn’t matter in the end. There can be no burying.” He never did stop hovering.

“Right, right, the only burial would be mine, right? Again. But that’s not happening. The other life was a wash, and this one’s better, despite the hardships, so I’m not complaining too much, but this one I’m not giving away.”

He sighed. “You’ve changed.”

“What did you think would happen? You can only be a naïve idiot one time around.”

“And yet… You trusted Sil.”

There he was, telling me there was no burying and in the next sentence complaining.

“He wasn’t hovering when we met, for one.” I didn’t care that I was being childish. Since this was clearly the level of the conversation we were having…

Fine. Perhaps a bit more sincerity. One last attempt. “He was dressed like a normal mer on his evening off. And he paid attention. He cared, and he recognised his brother. When I was nothing. An upstart on a stupid mission, trying to pray to a foreign god in a back room of a cornerclub. You’ve been dismissing me for a few hundred years. Which isn’t a new thing, I guess. And now I’m _telling_ you, we can bury it, move on, do something productive with this mess, and… I mean, I’m not without a heart, Telvanni or not, and you were my brother too once, now ex-wives are too complicated, and that’s past salvaging in any shape or form, not that I’d want to; that’s going to end in bloodshed. But this doesn’t have to. Unless you want it to.” Too much sincerity all at once. The problem when you start talking.

He regarded me some more with that sad smile and slowly shook his head. “You are right about a few things.” He fell silent.

“Out of curiosity,” he began again. “Since I never did bother to find out. You said ‘foreign god’. Where are you from?”

“Cyrodiil,” I said. Couldn’t keep a bitter grin off my face. “Check.”

He stayed serious. “Your parents?”

“Unknown. Dropped me off in a Temple of Mara when I was a baby. Who knows why?”

“You have a Dunmer family name. A small unimportant House, but a House nevertheless.”

“One of the priests at the temple adopted me. Dunmer, of course. Formally adopted. For formality’s sake, not in any emotional kind of way. But he told me when I was a child that if I ever wanted to be around my own people, I’d need a house and a name, or the wolves would eat me. So I could have his, out of patriotic obligation more or less.”

Vivec’s lips twitched at that. “The warm loving kindness of Mara’s priesthood.”

I grinned, just for a moment. “The effective caring of the Dunmer people, who know better, and who give you something that you can actually use in life.”

“That is how you grew up. And so, House Telvanni.”

“Seemed to fit me.”

He sighed. Then went on. “If not Salyn, I suspected certain Ashlander clans.”

“Always found them distasteful. Too… fanatical. Too aggressive. And I know I used to keep slaves in the past, but only for work. What goes on there… I want no part in that. Of course now I’ve got to associate with them somewhat. Events want to be what they want to be. But only diplomacy; it's not for me.”

“It’s not Azura but Lorkhan. Purely out of obligation to a friend?”

“No. That’s real. He contacted me on his own, earlier, before he sent Riacil to save me that one time. And I responded. It was all a bit chaotic and confused, but then you know.” I shrugged one shoulder. “It’s Lorkhan.” Out of the mood of the conversation, I pushed back one sleeve to expose the scraggly snake tattoo around my hand and wrist. “Gave myself that at that time. More of a guess at an association, and fever dream-addled, as I said, chaotic and confusing. But real enough.”

He stared at the badly drawn rope snake as if assessing a mortal threat. Maybe he was, at that.

“Cyrodiil,” he said at last. “I wonder if this is enough… Or do you have any association with Akatosh?”

“More nonsensical prophecies?”

“So you know what I’m getting at.”

He really was bringing _that_ up. “Something a few Ashlanders have been saying about Dragonborns. Well, if my irresponsible or heartless parents were Alessia’s descendants, I wouldn’t know, but that part is pretty silly. Don’t need to make more of this than it is.”

“Is that what you said about the Nerevarine prophecy in general?”

“More or less. Well, doesn’t matter, does it? I’m certainly not trying to become emperor.”

“Perhaps not.” He regarded me. “An idle curiosity. I had wondered about the dragon paragraph. But perhaps I should have paid more attention to real people than to prophecies. I do wonder why I kept forgetting about you. Sil’s misdirection aside.”

You know… “You know, here’s a thought. In case you still want to give yourself a reason why you ignored me. I know of three time lines. I existed in one of them. And it wasn’t the one Salyn recalled most directly.” I forced a smile. “Then there was only one.”

His eyes pierced mine for a moment. Then he looked aside, at some wall hanging with a volcano on it. “Amusing. That Salyn should have been the easier one to get along with. I didn’t think I’d like him.”

“And you thought you’d like me,” I couldn’t help saying. I didn’t want to hear the answer, so I went on. With something. “You know, Salyn didn’t think he’d like you either, but he does. You know, in fact, I’ll spare you for his sake. And Sil’s sake of course. And even my own sake if you finally agree we should stop this nonsense.”

He shook his head. Then he looked straight at me. “As I said. There can be no burying. This will end soon.”

“For fuck’s sake now, why? Even if you don’t like me enough to make peace for my sake, this is still stupid.”

He looked at me for a long time. “You’re wrong. It is the opposite. But for now, we have to work together. Dagoth Ur is the bigger threat.”

So that was that. Business then. “I agree.”

He pursed his lips. “Then, Lothryn Simero of House Telvanni, allow me to share my thoughts and vital knowledge on the situation at hand.”

What a waste of time. But sometimes you need to waste your time only to prove to yourself that it’s a waste of time.

If we meet again, I highly doubt it’ll go well.


End file.
